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March 01, 2005
Alcohol, pepper spray and crystal meth contribute to Fire Ball fracas
The Fire Ball turned raucous last week as students leaving the dance began pushing and shoving to get onto the shuttle buses waiting to take them back to campus. Two students reported that they were hit with pepper spray used by an off-duty Minneapolis police officer who appeared to be controlling the crowd.
Dean of Students Alan Sickbert, Director of Student Activities Kelly Krebs, and Director of Media Services
Brian Johnson chaperoned the event and reported that problems began when students began spilling out of Solera’s crowded entryway, onto the sidewalk and into the street.
Although there were enough buses to take the students back to campus, Sickbert said, the unexpectedly bad weather caused the buses to take longer to return to Solera after dropping off the first round of riders.
Sickbert said the main difficulty during the event was dealing with the half-dozen students who became ill from drinking too much prior to the dance. There were little to no behavioral problems from students 21 and older who were drinking at the bar, Sickbert said; rather, it was the underage drinkers who had started their partying at home before the dance that were creating the problems.
“The problem was managing the crowd that comes who have already been drinking when they show up,” Sickbert said.
Students Dax Young and John Mule reported being exposed to pepper spray. According to them, the off-duty officer was backed up against the door of one bus when people began pressing forward.
“He just pulled out the pepper spray and sprayed into the air,” MulÄ said. MulÄ said he was about 10 feet away from the officer during the incident and added that he didn’t feel the effects of the spray until moments later when he was on the bus and realized his face was burning.
Young reported being hit on the “entire side of my face” and said it burned quite badly. The effects of the spray wore off by the time the two men arrived back on campus.
Neither Sickbert, Krebs, nor Johnson could confirm the students’ account, as they did not see any pepper spray being used on Hamline students. Sickbert said he would look into the matter with Shirleen Hoffman, director of campus safety and security.
Johnson reported finding a makeup compact filled with what appeared to be packets of an illicit drug. Security identified it as crystal meth and disposed of it.
In light of the events at the Fire Ball and previous behavioral infractions at the yearly dance, Sickbert said that he, his staff, and student leaders would assess whether or not the winter formal event would be offered in the future.
“These can be special events for people, creating good memories,” Sickbert said, “but the behavior has to be right.”
In general, he said, students seem to have enjoyed themselves and he sees the tradition of a winter formal continuing at Hamline, despite the poor behavior of a handful of students.
Posted by msveum at March 1, 2005 07:24 AM
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